A network of health clinics that provide basic care to 57,000 people in New Orleans may be forced to shut down if Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's budget passes.
Kristy Nichols, Jindal's top administrator, presented the $7.7 million cut as part of an overall $1.2 billion in proposed budget reductions before state legislators Friday (Feb. 27).
If the funding is eliminated, the effective impact would be to end the Greater New Orleans Community Health Connection, said Susan Todd, executive director of 504HealthNet, a coalition of organizations concerned with providing health care to uninsured in the Greater New Orleans area.
The cut proposed by the governor would result in the loss of federal matching funds that allow the clinics to remain open.
This would not be as great of a concern if Louisiana participated in the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. Jindal has repeatedly insisted that the state and local communities should take care of their own problems and not depend on the federal government, but the state's healthcare system has eroded during his tenure.
Residents of Louisiana could be doubly fucked in the near future if the Supreme Court does the unthinkable and eliminates Obamacare subsidies in states that did not establish their own healthcare exchange.
The state of Louisiana relies on the federal healthcare exchange and Governor Jindal, for his part, is adamant that the Republican-controlled Congress should not fix the law if the Supreme Court decides to throw the entire country into chaos.
Jindal penned an op-ed for the National Review today in which he spins the coming shitstorm as a tax cut for the masses.
If eliminating the subsidies represents a net tax cut, then restoring the subsidies — whether by states creating their own exchanges, Congress passing new legislation, or some combination of the two — would re-impose a sizable tax increase. Americans would pay billions more in higher taxes to fund the newly restored subsidies, making Obamacare that much more entrenched. What self-proclaimed conservative of sound mind would do such a thing?
Why does Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal want the people of Louisiana to get fucked so hard?
Why does he want his own constituents to go bankrupt or die?
That is exactly what could happen.